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Copyright © 2010 by Galen Currah, Edward Aw and George Patterson.
Permission is granted to copy, translate, post and distribute freely.

The decline of Christian churches in Anglo America stands well documented. Mega-churches, emerging churches and house churches represent trends that remain too small to reverse the removal of Christian thought from business ethics and social fora. MentorNet asked veteran church-multiplication advocate and trainer, George Patterson, two questions:

Question 1. “Since Anglo America currently has no verifiable, church-planting movement, what kind of churches can multiply in Anglo America?” Patterson enumerated the following ten qualities that such a movement would likely adopt or exhibit.

1. New wine skins. Stop trying to push camels through the eye of a needle! Church as we have known it and peddled it round the world no longer works. Church-planting movements have taught us that churches must become intimate, organic, reproducible and mobile. Church leaders must abandon their pretension, office and authority, by assume responsibility to lead and to mentor leaders.
2. Christ-centered experience. Teaching, discussion, ethics, worship, spirituality and, above-all, obedience, will focus on the Lord Jesus Christ: who He is, His presence and power, what He promised, specific things that He is doing in the earth, in families and in individuals. Christolatry must trump all other good, valid doctrine, including creationism, personal ethics, charismatic phenomena and even evangelistic outreaches.
3. Lots of prayer. The rationalism and wealth that mark Anglo America seem to have displaced conscious dependence on God. Whilst busy Americans may not be able to gather daily for two or three hours of prayer, they must learn to pray a lot, on all occasions, for all kinds of needs and for Kingdom advance. Personal and small-group prayer can prove just as powerful as big group prayer meetings.
4. Child-like faith. When you pray, humbly expect God to answer. When children pray, they do not think about whether they be good enough, whether God honors human boldness, whether God interferes in nature, whether others have enough faith. They make their requests simply and shortly, and God usually acts.
5. Courageous proclamation. Courage may not be listed as a fruit of the Spirit, but to act with courage is both commended and commanded in Scripture, and reflects strong faith. Tell others what Jesus taught, what the Bible affirms, and what thoughtful Christians are saying, with humility but without hesitancy. Let the Spirit of God confirm your witness and your teaching.
6. The Bible in practice. The great heresy of the evangelical movement was to use the Bible as fodder for lessons and sermons, while denying it a role in determining church practice and missionary methods. We believed it but did not trust it to prove practical in modern societies. Spurgeon used to say, “The Bible is like a lion. Do not defend it; let it out of its cage.”
7. A prophetic voice. Every movement requires a prophet, a bold leader who speaks with passion, formulates clear, compelling teaching, and serves as an example of what he teaches. Amos (3:7) observed, “The Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.”
8. Post-modernism. The future of Anglo America will prove “post-modern” in worldview and social preferences, and the new Christian movements and churches will be launched by post-moderns, not for them by well-meaning moderns. Older believers can serve as cherished mentors to post-modern leaders, but must not dictate to them the rules and forms that caused the current decline.
9. Effective leadership. Whilst post-modern worldviews prove more like those of the Bible than did modernist, evangelical rationalism and individualism, post-moderns remain hampered by their refusal to provide strategic direction, decisive leadership, and training leaders in the way Jesus and His apostles did. Effective church leaders must overcome their group-think enough to provide plans, goals and correction in obedience to Christ.
10. Three kinds of cell groups. I call these seeker, seeder and feeder. Seeker groups are pre-believers who are willing to investigate Jesus, and often meet in homes of seekers such as Levi, Cornelius and the Philippian jailer; seeder groups are new believers who are excitedly launching seeker groups with their friends and families; and feeder groups are mature believers who require pastoral care and send willing workers to launch seeker and seeder groups. (See MentorNet #70.) One group might meet the needs of all three types of people, but in older churches it seldom occurs, because feeder groups tend to swallow up the seeder groups before they can multiply.

Question 2. “What can old, traditional churches, missions and leaders do, in order to foster such a church-multiplication movement in Anglo America?” In brief:

1. Start mentoring young leaders. Respect their post-modern social values, while helping them to plan, set goals and evaluate outcomes. Do not dictate forms and methods, but ask questions that will stimulate the young leaders to discover forms and methods that work for their friends and family.
2. Empower young church planters. Let them work outside existing churches, performing all kinds shepherding tasks, obeying all the commandments of Jesus, setting no non-biblical qualifications or standards, and raise up their own new leaders, training them in mentored relationships. Where people do not “come to church,” take the church to them!
3. Leverage post-modern values. The group orientation and communal values of post-modern adults suit the organic nature of house churches, and the expressive arts can communicate about Jesus and his teachings far more compellingly than do logical, analytical, linear sermonic monologues of the past.
4. Experience the Presence of Christ. Let worship focus on the Lord Jesus Christ, his spiritual presence in Christian gatherings, the work of the Holy Spirit through the sacraments, and the love of the Father for his children.
5. Emphasize prophetic ministry. The promise of Joel was that the Spirit of God would be poured out on old men and young, men and women, and they would prophesy. Peter proclaimed the fulfillment of that promise at Pentecost, and Paul instructed that prophecy should characterize church gatherings. Intimate gatherings that seek prophecy make no more errors that do seminary-educated clerics resounding from behind their pulpits.
6. Praise reproduction. It is the will of God that churches reproduce and that they fill the earth with Christian teaching, both geographically and socially. Teach church multiplication, empower church multipliers, and publicly approve of churches that multiply.
7. Mobilize many self-supported workers. For every paid professional, there should be dozens or hundreds of “tent-makers”, that is, their volunteer counterparts having the same gifting.

Copyright © 2010 by Galen Currah, Edward Aw and George Patterson.
Permission is granted to copy, translate, post and distribute freely.

Tracking progress of the gospel is proving to be a widely-practiced facet of mentoring for reproductive disciple-making. On the place of simple maps in leading CPMs, see MentorNet ##51 & 52. Continual gathering of reliable statistics on the outcomes of church-planting efforts enable timely decisions, since leaders can better:

• · Discern which populations are currently responsive and warrant more workers.
• · Recognize unreached and unengaged social segments where churches exist.
• · Discover highly-effective workers who can be coached for a greater impact.
• · Uncover ineffective workers who require more training or should be deployed elsewhere.

In the Book of Acts, the apostles apparently gathered data on their work, for they were able to report on how the messianic movement was growing, both by adding and by multiplying:

• · Numbers Baptisms and believers, by gender, added to churches (2:41; 2:47; 5:14; 11:24).
• · Numbers of disciples by region, city and social class (Acts 6:1; 6:7).
• · Churches by region (9:31; 16:5).
• · Regions penetrated by the Word of God (12:24; 13:48-49; 19:20).

Monitoring report forms, compiled results, and reports to leaders consist of qualitative descriptions and of quantitative counts. To prove practical in the field, report forms must prove short, clear, easy to fill in, and readily available. Making such reports must be integrated in the normal activities of local leaders and mentors must submit them regularly.

Qualitative Descriptors

Every monitoring form and each tracking tool provides for indicating locations and concerned personnel.

Locators. Coordinators sort the report forms by geographical places and identifiable social groups that are legally and culturally meaningful. These data we may call ‘locators’. They are of two kinds:

Place Locators: These may take the form of official and customary names, locality (region, town, village), gps coordinates, place codes.

People Locators: Official and customary identity, ethnicity, language, class, caste, people code.

Personnel. Line supervisors, trainers, mentors, apostles, evangelists and local leaders follow agreed plans frequently adjusted in response to mentoring results, and reported needs and opportunities. For example:

Quantitative Measures

Field personnel must keep simple counts that serve as “indicators” of gospel progress. Indicators show gains, losses and defections.

Indicators. These are counts of visible persons, objects and events that indicate, show or prove that invisible or immeasurable (1) inputs have been applied, (2) activities have been conducted and (3) outcomes have happened. Thus, indicators must be:

• · Measurable – can be accessed and quantified.
• · Verifiable – others can measure the same things and get similar results.
• · Economical – it does not take too much time or money to measure.
• · Informative – the measures reveal or prove inputs, activities and outcomes.

1. Sample Inputs

Input	Sample indicator
Research results	Documents: statistics, maps, resources, workshops
Peoples penetrated	Maps: peoples, places, languages, classes, castes
Teams in field	Personnel mobilized: names, places, dates, reports

2. Sample Activities

Activity	Sample indicator
Timely planning	New contacts: communes, personnel, seekers
Mentoring practices	Generational chains: frequency, duties, content
Churches obedient	Lord’s supper taken: frequency and communicants

3. Sample Outcomes

Outcome	Sample indicator
Believers	Baptized households: men, women, children
Disciples	Worshipers: teaching, table, prayers and sharing
Churches	Leaders: appointed, mentored, empowered

Reports

The results of analyses based on compiled tracking tools serve several purposes: enable ministry directors to form strategic alliances; inform field leaders about needed decisions; fuel prayer in churches; update national and regional mapping; motivate donors to give more wisely; keep all focused more on genuine progress than on rationalising busy work.

Copyright © 2010 by Galen Currah, Edward Aw and George Patterson.
Permission is granted to copy, translate, post and distribute freely.

Military, medical, and industrial executives have found that developing strong interaction between units and departments is vital to achieve top performance. Scripture demands it, too. Jesus is the great integrator: “In Him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). Has your church discovered the vitality that God imparts when it merges gift-based ministries as He requires, rather than specializing excessively in isolated programs? It is not a question of merely doing ministries at the same time; 1 Corinthians chapters 12 through 14, Ephesians 4, and Romans 8 all require churches to combine them. Have you overlooked biblical integration when organizing? If so, pause and ponder this vital concept, considering an example.

Consider whether you should better merge any of the following factors with each other:

A practical way to put this type of integrative love to work, is to link the ‘love chapter’ (1 Cor. 13) to chapters 12 and 14 (as it originally was), to show believers how to use their spiritual gifts in concert. Without this kind of love and humility, ministries become isolated and too specialized. Arrange for believers to spend a lot of time together, talk freely, and serve one another. The Good Samaritan had to draw near to the wounded Jew before he felt compassion for him (Luke 10:33). Meetings with every moment tightly programmed disallow the mutual interaction that the New Testament requires. Gifted teachers are often guilty of usurping time that should be spent having all harmonize their gifts.

Copyright © 2010 by Galen Currah, Edward Aw and George Patterson.
Permission is granted to copy, translate, post and distribute freely.

This MentorNet article leans to the theoretical side. There is a growing interest amongst church-planting ministries and those who support them, to learn what ‘makes things tick.’ One useful analytical approach to understand organizations and programmes derives from system theory. Church-planting ministries can be viewed as a set of sub-systems that interact together, such that, when one sub-system functions poorly, it sends ripple effects through the other sub-systems. Mentors help church planters find weak points in a sub-system and set them right. You can formulate questions to ask about points and issues that these sub-systems imply in their interactions (see page 2). Here are ten such sub-systems. No wonder the task seems daunting!

1. Theological Sub-system (thinking God’s thoughts)

a. How do workers adopt biblical promises, priorities and practices?

b. How do workers express their Kingdom vision, mission and values?

c. In what ways do workers plan by faith to implement their vision, mission and values?

2. Spiritual Sub-system (experiencing God’s reality)

a. In what ways do workers practice spirituality, prayer and discernment?

b. Describe how workers operate by gifts of the Spirit, in love.

c. Site instances of workers overcoming evil and opposition by faith.

3. Evangelical Sub-system (proclaiming God’s message)

a. How clearly to workers communicate the original, apostolic Good News?

b. How do workers discover and follow family, community and social networks?

c. What help to workers require in order to design suitable messages and media?

4. Ecclesial Sub-system (reproducing God’s people)

a. What highly-replicable forms, structures and activities have workers introduced?

b. In what ways do worshipers experience the Presence of Jesus Christ in their midst?

c. Cite examples of worshipers reproducing churches in their social networks?

5. Training Sub-system (forming God’s workers)

a. What is the ratio of formal instruction to obedience-oriented mentoring?

b. Describe how workers are incorporated into extended training chains.

c. With what appropriate materials do mentors supply their apprentice leaders?

6. Leadership Sub-system (guiding God’s flocks)

a. Describe how the five-fold ministers operate together in teams.

b. What are the steps workers follow to appoint provisional, tested elders and deacons?

c. Depend on gifting, growth, motivation and skills.

7. Discipleship Sub-system (rearing God’s children)

a. In what ways to workers empower believers to obey Jesus’ commandments?

b. What Christian doctrine, values, attitudes and behaviour do workers teach everywhere?

c. What personal, family and group disciplines do new churches teach and practice?

8. Compassion Sub-system (honouring God’s image)

a. What are the steps that workers take to enable local communities to meet their needs better?

b. Cite examples of workers providing temporary relief and sustainable community development.

c. What training and resources to workers have for reaching out to social groups at risk?

9. Financial Sub-system (supporting God’s work)

a. Describe the ministry’s current worker support structures.

b. How do workers empower self-supported leaders and churches for continual expansion?

c. Describe current churches’ practices of giving to meet needs and to send evangelists.

10. Monitoring and Evaluation Sub-system (tracking God’s blessing)

a. Track and measure selected ‘indicators’ of outcomes from the work.

b. Report and compile data from the field that inform leaders who make timely tactical choices.

c. Compare outcomes with faith goals, adjust strategies, adopt tactics, and train workers.

Tentative Sorting Scheme of 100 Systemic Issues that Arise in Reproductive Church Planting
from Ten Inter-acting Sub-systems

This table is intended to do several things: (a) to demonstrate the complexity of church multiplication work, (b) to suggest facets of the work that may require more prayer or better planning, and (c) to help identify points of weakness, dysfunction and breakdown in church-planting endeavours.

Download PDF. Click here.

Copyright © 2010 by By Bruce G.
Permission is granted freely to reproduce, translate, post and distribute.

Introduction. MentorNet readers are familiar with reports of how God is moving through ‘signs and wonders’ in many regions of the world where Christian workers watch healing and deliverance open some hearts to the Gospel and shut others. Even experienced practitioners in such ministries admit that there is much they do not understand about divine healing. MentorNet hopes that the following guidelines will help you incorporate healing and deliverance more effectively into your existing ministry.

1. Practice all of Jesus’ words. One of the most important things we Christian workers can do in this regard is to apply to ourselves the words Jesus spoke to his original workers. Christ gave his workers authority over sickness, disease, and evil spirits (Matt. 10:1 and Luke. 9:1). He then sent them out to proclaim the Good News, healing the sick and casting out demons (Matt. 10:8 and Luke. 9:2). According to the book of Acts, after Christ returned to the Father, his followers continued to use this authority, leading many to faith. Since the New Testament gives no indication that Jesus later withdrew this authority from his followers, we, too, may exercise this authority given by Jesus, just as his original apostles did (Matt. 18:18-20; John 14:10-13; 15:7-10; Eph. 1:15-23; 2:20-21; 3:14-21; 1 Cor. 12:7-10; Jam. 5:13-20).

Non-Western Christian workers easily embrace this approach. I asked a group of church planters in South Asia how they trained new workers. They said that they trained younger workers in healing and deliverance as a normal practice, and that over two-thirds of the house churches in their network were started following a demonstration of Christ’s power over sickness and unclean spirits. They do not regard this as in any way unusual, nor do the people to whom they minister.

2. Apply Christ’s authority boldly. Whilst God graciously answers many petitions for healing and deliverance, there is another aspect of healing ministry that deserves attention. According to the healing and deliverance episodes recorded in the Gospels and Acts, rather than petitioning the Father to make the sick whole, Christ and his followers spoke directly and authoritatively to the sick, to their condition, or to whatever spirits may have been involved. Christ did not say this was the only approach to take, but it is the one recorded throughout the Gospels and the Acts. This is also the common approach of those I have worked with in South Asia and East Africa. In those regions, one sees little in the way of petitionary prayer. Christian workers’ usual approach is to exercise the delegated authority of Christ, as his early followers did, and they regularly see the sick healed and the oppressed delivered. When I myself started dealing with sickness and the demonic in this way, I, too, began to see more people healed.

Ministry with authority may require one to pray at length or speak repeatedly a word of command, as necessary. In South Asia, a woman was brought to me for prayer who could only see light and dark shadows. I spent a minute commanding the cause of the blindness to leave, in Jesus’ name, and for her sight to become sharp and clear. I then asked what she could see, and she said there was some improvement. I repeated this twice more, until she reported that she could read the lettering on a poster 50 feet away. This reminded me of Christ praying twice for a blind man (Mk. 8:23-25). Again, although there is no direct NT command to take either approach; I suggest studying all of the pertinent NT passages, asking the Holy Spirit which approach to take.

3. Persevere and work in a team. The early disciples were trainees who did not always get the desired results, as recorded in Luke 9:37-43. Many today see little or no results when they start ministering to the sick and oppressed. These have to keep on trying, without growing discouraged, believing that they will see results if they persevere. It can be very helpful to talk with those who get good results dealing with disease or the demonic. Prayer in a group for the sick can prove highly effective, if time and circumstances allow. Also, keep an eye open for opportunities to work alongside someone who has an authentic healing ministry, or to include such folk in your ministry team. Combining healing with ministries of the Word can be unusually powerful.

4. Look for those whom you can serve. You will see more folk set free, if you look for more opportunities to minister to them. When others know that your team practices healing ministry, you will get opportunities for Christ to show that his healing power is the same yesterday, today and forever. Many workers I have talked to in South Asia go through neighborhoods and villages looking for a ‘house of peace’, by telling folk that they pray to God to bless folk, which includes prayer for the sick or demonized in the name of Jesus. Quite often they are welcomed into homes and discover a house of peace in which they are able to start a church. For more on houses of peace, see MentorNet #32 at <www.mentornet.ws/pdf/mentornet32.pdf>.

5. Deal with the whole person. While God heals whom and when He wills, certain factors are often seen in the lives of those who suffer from disease and the demonic. When these factors are dealt with, relief can come quickly. If time and circumstances allow, deal with the possible presence these issues. Such factors include unforgiveness and bitterness, anger and resentment, known sin or disobedience, past involvement in the occult, false religions, and other unhealthy spiritual practices. Help the sick or oppressed to repent of their sins, to forgive and release others, or to put away evil practices. Doing so can lead to healing right on the spot.

6. Live with the unknown. No one will deny that much mystery surrounds healing. Some afflictions may be caused by spiritual warfare or other unknown factors, such as a person’s lifestyle choices. Disregard for fellow believers in the early Christian community once resulted in a good deal of sickness, even death (1 Cor. 11:30). When you minister to the sick, you will sometimes deal with folk who have a sincere faith yet are not healed. Even Paul, miracle worker that he was, once had to leave his sick co-worker Trophimus in Miletum, while he went on elsewhere.

It is often unclear why some believers have great success in administering healing, while other equally-committed folk have only modest results. It is easy to feel embarrassed (for oneself or for God) when a sick person is not healed. In those cases, it is good to remember that the love and care you show the sick can itself have a big impact on those present. Nevertheless, we believers trust that ‘it is to the glory of God to conceal a matter’ (Proverbs 25.2), so we keep the faith, trusting in the goodness and grace of God, even in the face of on-going physical suffering.

7. Honour Christ and bless households. Some folk, after being healed, may fail to follow through with faith and obedience to Christ. Whether healing happens or not, your objective should always be to lead house­holds to become lovingly-obedient disciples of Jesus. Healing, signs and wonders should only point to the Healer and Saviour, the Risen and Ascended Lord of Heaven and Earth.

Conclusion. Healing is one of many ministries that can open hearts and lives to the gospel. ‘Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil’ (Acts 10.38). Even though you will not duplicate Jesus’ results, usually for unknown reasons, you can broaden the scope of your ministry and see much blessing as you put his words into practice, following his example.

For consultation at no cost, contact Bruce G. through <http://mentorandmultiply.com/bruce.html >.

Copyright © 2009 by Galen Currah, Edward Aw and George Patterson.
Permission is granted freely to reproduce, translate, post and distribute.

We are often asked in North America, “Why don’t our small groups multiply?” To sustain multiplication, your church must form three distinct types of cells, just as New Testament churches did: seeker, seeder and feeder cells. Church-reproduction movements in pioneer fields include these three simultaneously. North America churches typically include the first two in the third, effecting stifling them. (In this diagram, the word multipliers refers to mature believers who prove passionate about multiplication.)

Additional resources

· Order G. Patterson’s Church Multiplication Guide from a bookshop or at <www.WCLbooks.com>.

· To subscribe to MentorNet, or to download earlier messages, visit <www.MentorNet.ws>.

Copyright © 2009 by Galen Currah, Edward Aw and George Patterson.
Permission is granted freely to reproduce, translate, post and distribute.

Introduction
Letter to the Colossians chapters 1 and 4 name several individuals who formed a kind of training chain. Paul took care not to by-pass links in the chain, respecting each one’s working relations, calling them his “co-workers”.

These individuals included:

Paul –> Timothy –> Epaphras –> Archippus –> Nympha

One immediately recalls the oft-cited text of 2 Timothy 2:2. See MentorNet #67, “The Fourth Generation”. In this article, a “training chain” consists of more-experienced church leaders who serve as mentor to a few less-experienced ones, in periodic, face-to-face sessions that include prayer, reporting, planning, learning assignments, review, and skill practice.

Edward Aw and other experienced mentors, who train others through branching chains, have identified several functions of such chains. Perhaps you can identify others?

Functions of Training Chains
1. Make disciples of leaders. Philippians 2:22. Mentors lay a foundation of loving obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. Edward Aw likens training chains unto “a godly, loving parent raising up godly, loving children to raise up more godly, loving children”.

2. Learn from the field. Philippians 1:27. Those whom you mentor for success in their work will normally prove both loyal to you and accurate in their assessments of their work and needs of their churches. Regular mentoring sessions allow you “to see and hear” through your trainees.

3. Plan ministry in churches. Titus 1:5. Your trainees look to you for guidance and biblical wisdom that they can apply in their churches. In this way, you can ensure continual development as their churches’ members learn to appropriate God’s grace in an ever-expanding service.

4. Train in new skills. 1 Thessalonians 3:12. Your mentees continually face fresh oppor¬tunities, expanding needs and perplexing challenges for which they may lack experience and skill, as do those whom they train, in turn. Thus, your mentoring flows down the chain.

5. Encourage workers. Ephesians 6:12. Your focussed attention on workers and their churches a few minutes in a week or month will strengthen their resolve to prove worthy of your trust and sincere hope for their success. These will, then, do the same with other workers, in turn.

6. Train many more workers. 2 Timothy 2:2. In an ever-expanding movement of evangelism and church planting, conventional educational institutes could never graduate enough workers of the right kind, in sufficient numbers. Therefore, your trainees must train most new workers.

7. Intercede in behalf of churches and workers. Colossians 1:9. George Patterson calls mentoring, “Loving churches through their leaders”. Without doubt, prayers and intercessions accomplish more with God than most preachments, threats, incentives and persuasive arguments.

8. Project extension and expansion. Matthew 28:18-20. Planning expresses both obedience to Christ’s commandments and faith in the promises of God who wants more believers, more disciples, more congregations, in more families, communities, languages, peoples and cultures.

9. Recruit more workers. Luke 10:2. Most new workers come, not from a distant sending agency, but from the “harvest”, for God gives needed apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. Your task, and that of your trainees, is to identify, to empower and to mentor these.

10. Manage ministry resources. Titus 1:7. Since most new leaders, like the churches that they serve, remain self-supported, and timely mentoring can explore with them ways in which to implement the instructions that Jesus taught, within local budgets and resources.

11. Report statistics. Acts 6:7. The Book of Acts reports growth numerically or in mathematical terms. Where movements grow continually, leaders pay attentions to actual figures on baptisms, communicants, congregations, budgets, etc., and employ theses in prayerful planning.

12. Supervise personnel. 1 Timothy 3:15. Paul referred to his trainees, such as Timothy and Titus, as his “sons”, neither as his servants nor his employees. See MentorNet #65, “Work your Personnel, Not the Principles”. He helped these set clear objectives and to meet the same.

13. Coordinate inter-church cooperation. Acts 18:24-28. Mentors can bring together leaders of several churches, helping them to plan cooperative efforts as well as to move gifted believers between churches where they can meet local needs.

14. Set workers and churches free to reproduce. Matthew 10:1, 5. Just as Jesus authorized workers to perform the same works as he did, and to do so in homes where they were received, so you can authorize your trainees to do every work of leadership wherever the Lord sends them.

Conclusion
Draw a chart of the generational training chains in which you participant, noting every one who trains others in the way described in the Introduction. Pray and envision every “last link” starting to train others in turn who lead new churches and cell groups. Plan with your trainees to extend their training chains.

Copyright © 2009 by Paul-Timothy.net
Permission is granted to reproduce, translate, distribute and post this document.

In November 2009, four CP trainers, who had been mentored by George Patterson, enjoyed three intense weeks in South Asia, introducing the Train & Multiply® (www.TrainAndMultiply.com) programme to indigenous church planting entities at 19 locations, at the invitation of a non-governmental organization that provided in-country hospitality, travel and arrangements. We thank the organizers for both the opportunity and their generous kindness.
The trainers’ combined experiences, notes and evaluations have led to seven, tentative, “lessons” for those who wish to introduce mentored leader training in various settings and situations and across many ministries

1. Training must serve a cause that will thrive even if the training itself has been weak.
   Militant enemies, debilitating infections, car crashes, unavailable materials, weak interpretation, trainers’ cultural ignorance, mosquitoes, poorly-chosen participants, suspicious clergymen, a cancelled visa, all these happened and cannot be avoided. We praise God that his work will progress and triumph where our training efforts remain absent, prove unacceptable or become compromised in a fallen world.
2. There is a vast and growing demand for training in church reproduction and leadership practices.
   This present decade has witnessed thousands of new churches planted with hundreds of thousands of new believers. Most of these want to reproduce as tens of thousands of churches and millions more new believers. Most recognise that some kind of affordable, available, reproducible training must be implemented at every location.
3. Tie training to organisations or identities that have capacity to sustain it.
   Not all churches, ministries and organisations have a structural or personal capacity to sponsor and maintain a sustained effort over time to supply training and materials across diverse linguistic, ethnic and religious communities. Thus, training must become a function of a wide variety of entities that are willing to see multiplication multiplicative reproduction fostered in other ministries’ venues as well as their own.
4. Some clergy will empower workers and churches to reproduce, others will not.
   Church reproduction training follows scriptural instructions and models, that take seriously Jesus’ and his apostles’ examples of empowering branching, multi-generational ‘chains’ of church workers who learn to mentor each other. Trainers must take seek to invest heavily in leaders who adopt that mentality while taking care to invest lightly in Christian clerics who resist losing direct control of churches and workers, seeking to retain power and finances for their own prestige and privilege.
5. Employ interactive, cross-cultural training methods.
   It is as important that professional, albeit unpaid, trainers, like us, seek to reproduce ourselves in national or local workers, as much as it is imperative that those workers reproduce themselves in those whom they train. This requires employing methods that prove useful and reproducible in actual practice, continually making necessary changes to training methods and ideas. We found that one of the best ways to make teaching points very memorable was to incorporate simulations, skits, role-plays and demonstrations in the presentation.
6. Present content that has enjoyed success in many peoples and nations.
   Many training programmes and materials have developed within a single cultural milieu, and prove unacceptably foreign when exported elsewhere. Programmes like T&M have been translated and successfully applied in many lands over several decades. That experience has led to a small number of ‘universal’ principles and adaptable practices that normally lead to church and worker reproduction. Many of the training principles used successfully in pioneer fields also apply well to multiply cell groups in Western churches, especially among poorer people.
7. Training materials must be available for immediate implementation.
   Experts in innovation have identified universal ‘stages’ that populations pass through in adapting new ideas and practices. Many things can stop innovation, such as the unavailability of supplies, materials or skills to implement an idea that a group has chosen to adopt. Thus, one must have training materials available to trainees from the moment they opt to act.
8. Trainers must have had experience in CP work and prove passionate about CPMs.
   A new church leader can train newer church leaders who have less experience than he. A trainer who introduces mentored training to church leaders should have, himself, applied his training in his own work. That fact not only builds his credibility in the eyes of others, it supplies him with a lot of practical wisdom that can be tapped during lively discussions with trainees who want answers.

Copyright © 2009 by Galen Currah, Edward Aw and George Patterson
This document may be copied, translated, posted or distributed without permission.

“You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” 2 Timothy 2:1-2

You have often observed the four generations in this text: (1) Paul, (2) Timothy, (3) faithful men and (4) others, also. Let us look for a moment at that fourth generation which is often absent in multi-tiered training schemes, due to woefully ineffective mentoring.

The common wisdom of reproductive disciple-making to the fourth generation can be expressed in a handful of observations, followed by some recommended guidelines.

Fourth-Generation Multiplication Observations

1. No one is a “master trainer” (Paul) until his trainees (Timothies) are training faithful folk (anthropos=humans) who are training other (faithful folk), in turn. Giving an individual a title of Master Trainer, and perhaps a salary to boost his prestige, will not ensure that his trainees train others also. Trained, salaried Pauls and Timothies may work amazing exploits for the Kingdom, but they seldom reproduce themselves in others.
2. Master trainers rise through the ranks. They start as faithful folk who accept the thankless task of starting or leading a home church, cell group or little congregation. If they are being coached, mentored or otherwise trained on the job, and they prove willing to follow instructions, applying their lessons on the job, then they prove to be “other” faithful folk. As they pray and seek to help their flock reproduce and undertake to training one or more others, then they graduate to become “faithful folk” who are able to teach others also. When their trainees are training others in turn, then they have been promoted to Timothy status by their faithful service. After another generation comes on, the first in now a Paul, a master trainer.
3. Most explosive multiplication occurs in the fourth generation and after. The first generation often comes from outside the local society and lacks both network relationships and deep cultural understanding, both of which are necessary to communicate clearly and effectively. Thus these must invest their vision and mentoring in a small number local folk who must learn to believe and to behave as disciples of Jesus in the face of family opposition. Eventually, these will mature, form and lead a few flocks and raise up a third generation of assistant workers. It these who invest in the 100s and 1000s of grass-root church planters, preachers, evangelists, and leaders of 10s of 1000s of self-multiplying flocks.
4. Things break down after the third generation. Whilst the first generation remains foreign and marginal to the society, the second generation typically consists of educated, urban and urbane individuals who respond to outsiders and learn their concepts quickly. Once these become disciples and trainees of the outsiders, they seek to extend their training to others who normally prove to be younger individuals from their same social background without status or influence. That is where the chain normally stops, for the fourth generation does not think like or respond easily to prodding and coaching of urbane, powerful individuals even though these may have brought them the Good News.

Those who seek to extend their vision and training into the fourth generation and beyond may find it fruitful to respect and apply in an appropriate manner a few guidelines.

Fourth-Generation Multiplication Guidelines

1. Hold occasional workshops for current and potential leaders who train others or who are about to start doing so. Such workshop will demonstrate from Scripture and in practical ways how to pray, to envision, to plan, to initiate, to develop and to extend “training chains” that empower and enable new shepherds of new flocks. The Train & Multiply “Activity Guide” and menu-driven pastoral studies can facilitate just such training chains. See under Resources at the end of this document a link to three tested workshop manuals for the training of trainers.
2. Start your training chains in the lower classes of the local society or plan with your Timothies to do so. The extra months or year that it may take to learn a language and make cultural adjustments may bear much fruit. This may prove better than working with urbane youth who understand quickly but have no status, opportunities or interest in lower class populations where explosive growth can happen. There is little prestige in working with low-class folk, but there is great potential for eternal glory.
3. Work with adult men from the start. Herein lies a major obstacle to many outsiders who find that local men talk too fast, easily counter shallow arguments, act and sometimes drink like men, and may even threaten outsiders with violence. Nevertheless, God has prepared some of those gruff, rustic, masculine specimens for eternal life. Once they understand the Good News, they will embrace it and you. Many of them will become the first shepherds of new flocks whom they themselves will draw to Jesus Christ, looking to you for advice, training and coaching.
4. Resist recruiting large numbers of volunteers for your training program. Rather choose faithful men who prove their giftedness and enjoy a good reputation with others. In your mentoring of new leaders, help them to identify others like themselves who can lead, start new cells or churches and train other in turn. It is a law of life and spirit that we will reproduce after our kind. So let us resolve to take the time, long or short, to invest in the kinds of men and women whom others will follow.

Copyright © 2009 by Galen Currah, Edward Aw and George Patterson
This document may be copied, translated, posted or distributed without permission.

Jesus promised: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matt. 18:20) If you mentor those who multiply new gatherings and those who shepherd them, then you understand the importance of this basic unit of the living Body of Christ on earth. You can help your trainees plan, form and multiply many tiny gatherings as part of a bigger congregation.

What they can do

Little gatherings of two, three or more, prove entire capable of fulfilling many, biblical requirements of an authentic body. However little gatherings may be, they can:

• experience the Presence of Christ (see www.MentorNet.ws, #56 or on AcquireWisdom.com.)
• obey, together, all Jesus’ basic commandments (believe, baptize, love, pray, share, praise, commune, give, make disciples…)
• exercise spiritual gifts (evangelize, prophesy, exhort, teach, show mercy…)
• edify one another with loving interaction, practicing the biblical “one another” commands
• persevere through time, trials and persecution
• reproduce by adding members and forming new gatherings

Other advantages

The littlest of gatherings enjoy certain strengths and advantages that prove difficult for bigger congregations. Consider these:

• quick growth, easily doubling in only a few day’s time
• starting and thriving without budgets, benches, bells, banners
• a married couple worshiping with their children or servants
• easily moving location according to needs or convenience
• quickly learning from mistakes and make needed changes
• providing discipleship for seekers and new believers
• opportunity for new leaders to gain experience
• avoiding being bullied by oppressive laws and hostile authorities

Two or three of whom?

The New Testament provides examples of many small gatherings, some of them consisting, at least temporarily, of two or three individuals. These include one individual sharing with another (a couple from Emmaus), newly-saved households (a Philippian jailor), home-based gatherings (Lydia’s house), apostolic teams (Paul and Silas), those praying for restoration (Matt. 18:19-20), training leaders (Priscilla and Aquila with Apollos). Thus, the two or three may consist of individuals, evangelists, married couples, heads of households, team mates, military personnel, students on campus, friends at coffeehouses, and so forth.

Basic unit of all growth

A silent reality of all social groups, including congregations, missionary bands, house gatherings and discipleship groups, is that they grow mostly in units of two or three. That is, every one or two believers finds another; every one or two couples seeks a third; every one or two shepherds seeks to train up a new one.

Shepherds, missionaries and trainers can enhance groups, both quantitatively in numbers and qualitatively in maturity, by paying attention to this basic pattern. Of course, this is not a matter of mathematical precision, but of simply working together on a micro-level to win folk to Christ and to disciple them in a normal, effective and reproductive way.

1 + 1 = 2

2 + 1 = 3

3 + 1 = 2 + 2

2 + 2 + 1 = 3 + 2

3 + 2 + 1 = 2 + 2 + 2

et cetera

Every believer seeks to win a friend, every couple finds another couple, and every shepherd appoints an apprentice. Next, every two friends win a third, or every two couples seek a third couple, every two shepherds appoint a third. Each of these “triads” seeks another individual, another couple, another shepherd, until they are four and can become two pairs of individuals, two pairs of couples, two pairs of shepherds. Thereafter, every pair, again, seeks another.

A tactic for reproduction

You can help your mentees plan to match every believer or believing couple with another believer or believing couple, for purposes of mutual encouragement. Such matching can happen during cellular or congregational gatherings, or between gatherings. Instruct every pair to pray and ask God to bring them a third believer or couple. The three will then pray and ask God to bring a fourth. When the fourth has come, these will form a new pair of two individuals or two couples who will pray and ask God for a third believer or a third couple.

Each of you mentors should pray and ask God for an apprentice mentor, and the two of you should pray and ask God for another apprentice mentor, then a fourth. Soon you will be two pairs of mentors, praying and asking God for yet another. This will continue until the Lord Jesus be revealed from heaven with power and glory.